


The Swallowtail Boy

by aquabluejay



Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, Tokusatsu
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Gen, Kuroto ain't as slick as he thinks he is, Parad is the office cryptid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 20:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18059324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquabluejay/pseuds/aquabluejay
Summary: Six years is a long time to hang about a building unnoticed, even if you can teleport, and especially when you dress like that. Among the staff of Genm Corp, Parad is rumor, a ghost story at the company Christmas party.The CEO's secretary sees more than anyone knows.





	The Swallowtail Boy

**Author's Note:**

> _Do you think some of the folks at Genm know about Parad?_  
>  I mean they don't KNOW about him but they've seen him... 

Parad never knew it, but he was a legend even when he wasn’t able to be Genius Gamer M anymore.

Six years is a long time to hang about a building unnoticed, even if you can teleport, and especially when you dress like that. Among the staff of Genm Corp, Parad is something of an urban legend, the company cryptid so to speak.

Gossip is impolite and generally discouraged by supervisors, of course. But every once in awhile someone will see him and share their experience around the water cooler, or the topic will come up at a department party and theories will be swapped around.

No one knows who he is or what he does, if he's a real person or some kind of ghost haunting the building’s  upper floors for some reason. No one claims to have clearly seen his face.

The CEO's personal secretary knows better than to engage in any kind of gossip about what goes on in the CEO's space if she wants to keep her job. She has a particular responsibility. So although people sometimes ask her, prodding and cajoling, she always brushes it off, denying having seen anything unusual.

It isn't a lie, but it isn't exactly true.

She chooses her wording carefully when she tells them so. Because she hasn't seen anything irregular recently, really.

Because in fact the truth is, to her, there’s nothing “irregular” about it. She sees the mysterious young man all the time.

Mostly just glimpses, out of the corner of her eye. But she _has_ seen him. She doesn't know who he is but he certainly seems to hang about the CEO'S office. She finds it rather hard to believe that the CEO doesn't know about it, although he's certainly never given the slightest indication to anyone, not even her.

She doesn't know his name, so she calls him swallowtail, after the design of the peculiar black jacket he wears. It is after all, most often all that she sees of him, catching sight of those distinctive tails fluttering, slipping away around a corner.

She has seen his face. Once she brought something into the office proper while the CEO was out. The swallowtail boy was, to her great surprise, sitting out on the private terrace outside. He didn't seem to notice her.

It gave her a chance to study him through the windows. He was engrossed in a handheld game, a wide smile lighting his face as much as the sunlight. He seems much younger than she would have guessed before. No one else claims to have gotten a good look at him, and he's so unusually tall, that it's no wonder the other employees must have assumed him to be a man rather than the boy he clearly is.

She wonders why he sneaks about. It can't be that he's not supposed to have access to the building. If he's connected to the CEO somehow, as she suspects he must be, that wouldn't make much sense… It’s idle speculation, and most days her duties keep her busy enough that she hasn’t time to spare pondering over the swallowtail boy.

Nonetheless, her suspicions are finally confirmed nearly two years later when she catches the CEO actually speaking to the Swallowtail boy. She comes up short just outside the threshold. She’d been about to deliver something to the CEO. He was alone in his office working, or he should have been. There’s someone else there too speaking -- someone who she certainly didn’t see come in. It isn’t the swallowtail boy she’s shure. The voice doesn’t fit him and as she edges cautiously closer she spots his reflection in the glass wall across the office suite, appearing to follow the conversation silently.

He’s smiling but, she thinks, somehow not as bright as it had been the first time she saw it. Maybe it’s the quality of the light, or an effect of viewing it through the reflection but… it strikes her as somehow just a little bit brittle. Like he’s hiding something behind it. She goes back to her desk and presses the intercom to let the CEO know she has the printouts he was waiting for. She manages not to look surprised when she’s invited into the office a moment later to put them on his desk, and there’s no one but the CEO to be seen, typing away on his keyboard.

When the CEO vanishes, on the run apparently, the swallowtail boy vanishes with him. Mostly. The secretary is still posted at her desk by the elevator, doing her best to keep things together. A few times, she thinks she hears something from the supposedly empty space down the hall. Going to check on the sounds once, yielded only a glimpse of those black coattails around the doorframe and then… nothing. The office suite was empty. The CEO’s desk is clear. The personal items which had adorned it, including the polished wood and brass executive pen stand and the novelty pens which had incongruously been displayed in it, are missing.  The wooden letters spelling out “Genm” are the only thing left on the desk otherwise swept bare.

It doesn’t last long before a new, interim CEO is appointed. In fact, he seems to just appear out of thin air. She meets him, he charms her, but she can’t help but think that there’s something just a little off about him. He doesn’t seem to be in the office much. In fact, he seems to appear and disappear almost as much as the swallowtail boy, who appears to have resumed his regular visitation of the office.

When the _old_ CEO returns it’s quite a shock. Not Dan Kuroto, but his father, the CEO before him. The man had gone to jail before she had been hired and she had never met him. The interim CEO vanishes not two days later without a word, and only the thinnest of explanations from Dan Masamune as he settles into the desk chair like a throne.

The swallowtail boy vanishes without a trace. An omen.

Despite the chaos and the disappearances of players and pressure from the Ministry of Health - from the whole government - the newly re-throned founder of Genm Corp refuses to back down and the Genm staff grow increasingly uncomfortable. She takes her cue and finds another position, leaving the company with less notice than she would have given under other circumstances. She feels like she’s fleeing.

Eventually, she sees in the news when everything is over. The Ministry of Health and some of those doctors from Seito hospital who used to visit all the time give their press conference. She hears from her former coworkers who stayed with the company that things are tough for the business but they’re looking up under the new management.

She doesn't go back. She’s comfortable in her new job and due a raise at her next review. But every once in a while, when she has a moment, she still wonders what became of the swallowtail boy. She never asks her former co-workers about him, but she hopes wherever he is, he’s smiling brightly again.

 


End file.
